Marissa Nadler's music reminds me very much of Leonard Cohen's early records. Her first couple albums sound like an alternate soundtrack to McCabe and Mrs Miller. She covers 'Famous Blue Raincoat' on her third album. Her fourth and latest is supposedly a little less folkie than her previous ones, but I haven't heard it yet.

If I understood French I would perhaps withdraw the observation but it sure sounds like they have similar sensibilities.

Of the younger kids (kids in my age group, that is) that seem to have a Leonard Cohen influence, I think Beck is most likely a fan, though I don't know how I would make a case for it in court. "Sea Change" in particular seems to have a touch of Cohen around the edges.

He was the songwriter in a reasonably successful band called Midnight Choir (get the Leonard connection?) but it is Al's solo work over the last few years since the band broke up that really shines. A good starting point is Volume 3, a stately album of pared-down hymn like songs, and then Mountains On The Moon, his latest which is a lusher collection with a larger band.

Despite singing in English, he doesn't seem to have much of an audience outside of Norway and Germany - although you can buy his CDs through Amazon or if you are a 7Digital customer and want MP3s log onto the German site (http://de.7digital.com/Search?search=de ... mit=Suchen) - I was able to use my UK log-on details to buy from there..

One artist that I love almost as much as Leonard is Tom Mcrae. His style isn't exactly the same as Cohen's but some things he does share with Leonard are his self-depreciating humour and his rapor with an auidence. He's also not widely known, so it always feels like his music is aimed at me (This is how Leonard's music used to feel to me when I found him in my teenage years)

I don't know about all the other artists metioned here but Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen change around the music and lyrics each time they perform, I often wonder how other musicians manage to play along to either of them given how unpedictable they seem to be.

Two or three who have contributed to this thread have talked of the one - in the Western tradition, at least - who to me comes most forcefully to mind: Jacques Brel.

I am so thankful that I learned some French in school. With that modest inheritance, I'm able to take in a small measure of the import of Brel's intentions, some of the weight of his poetry. I found a "complete lyrics" book recently, in paperback, called "Tout Brel", published by 10/18 and available on amazon.fr, which I find to be of great help.

Brel's expressive singing is non-pareil. I find he most resembles Cohen in the songs on his final album, sometimes known as "Brel" and sometimes as "Les Marquises" (with the blue sky and white clouds on the cover), which he recorded shortly before his death in 1978. Check out "La Ville s'endormait", for example, or "Voir un ami pleurer". But many of his songs and records, particularly from 1959 - 1968, are comparably moving, dark, rich, satiric, poetic and spiritual as our LC.

One of Brel's very last songs, "Mai 40", is like a gaily-toned, satiric counterpart to "The Partisan" .. the Germans pour across the border .... and Brel's "Belgitude" is first aroused, and then crushed ... and, at the end, "the women become silent".

The 2-CD collection "Infiniment" is the place to begin.

Brel's sounds are magnificent. I find that his body of work stands strong together with Leonard's. But I guess that schoolboy French really does help quite a bit ...

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine, I'd recommend at least a song to you, but my tunes are played on the harp unstrung.
This tune has some of the lyrical depth of Cohen.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=671AgW9xSiA